[Taxacom] google and taxonomy

[Donat Agosti]

In this weeks edition there is an article regarding Google in China: "A land
without Google?" and its implications.


Published online 24 February 2010 | Nature 463, 1012-1013 (2010) |
doi:10.1038/4631012a
http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100222/full/4631012a.html 

 

It has some interesting statements

"Research without Google would be like life without electricity," says Xiong
Zhenqin, an ecologist at Nanjing Agricultural University in Jiangsu
province."

 

"Of the 784 <http://www.nature.com/nature/newspdf/google_china_survey.pdf>
scientists who responded, more than three-quarters said they use Google as
the primary search engine for their research."

 

"More than 80% use the search engine to find academic papers; close to 60%
use it to get information about scientific discoveries or other scientists'
research programmes;"

 

"The findings are very typical of most countries in the world,"

 

"Google "has transformed information-seeking behaviours in academic
communities", and losing such an important research tool would significantly
compromise scientists'"

 

"When ScienceDirect opened its content to Google in March 2007, for example,
the proportion of traffic channelled from Google rose to more than 40% in
the space of a few months, says Nicholas. "We live in an information era and
Google is the key to the door of the global village," he says. "Not having
Google would be a huge disadvantage, especially for young academics.""

 

"As one of the survey respondents put it: "If I lose Google, it will [be]
just like a man without his eyes.""

.......

Regarding taxonomy, it seems very obvious that this could be extended to
say, without Treatments online, we are like a man without eyes.

 

Donat

 

 

Dr. Donat Agosti

President

Plazi

Research Associate, American Museum of Natural History and Naturmuseum der
Burgergemeinde Bern

Email: agosti at amnh.org

Web:  <http://antbase.org/> http://antbase.org / http://plazi.org

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